Tommy Tainant
Diamond Member
- Thread starter
- #21
Yes. It is there to curb the power of the state.Magna Carta ?People really resent jury duty over here, never been called myself. Touch wood.Easily one of the best movies ever made. And it's easy to see how the uber conservatives in the room are driven by emotion, racism, laziness.
I was foreman on a jury a while back and all but two of the people were reasonable. One woman was so angry the judge wouldn't excuse her from jury duty she told us when we got in the jury room she'd vote not guilty no matter what. It turns out that after a couple days of deliberations she also was swayed to consider the evidence rather than her emotion. The defendant was found guilty of one charge and innocent of the other though both decisions at first were split.
12 Angry Men does a great job of portraying 'reasonable doubt'. The part where E.G. Marshall who was unswayable but when asked if the woman would go to bed with her glasses on responded "no, no one wears glasses to be. I'm convinced".
And notice Henry Fonda says throughout the movie that he doesn't know if the kid is guilty. He wasn't 100% sure of his own opinion either. The whole thing was to show that the standard of 'reasonable doubt' is what should be the deciding factor.
I actually enjoyed it. It is a lot like you see on tv or in movies. After the verdict a few of us stayed behind to talk with both lawyers and have them ask us questions which I've never seen before. The defense told me that he asked the judge to remove me after some comments I made in the courtroom to clarify something someone else had said on the jury. I was like "what do you want, we aren't pros here most of us have never done this".
I recommend to anyone to do it at least once.
I do not support Trial By Jury for the below reason you give:
"I was like "what do you want, we aren't pros here most of us have never done this".
All trials should be by Judicial Panel comprised of legal professionals and not lay persons who have no education or training in legal situations.
I'm sorry I am not that up on a lot of the Magna Carta, are you saying that it ensures Trial By Jury or what?